Everyone is talking about Matteo Salvini. As new Italian Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, he recently called for a census on Roma people with plans to deport non-Italian Roma. “Unfortunately, we have to keep the Italian Roma,” says Salvini, a leader of the far-right party Lega. He also made headlines by refusing docking rights to the NGO-run Aquarius rescue boat, which had 629 refugees and migrants on board. Last week the international media analysed his far-right, anti-Roma and anti-migrant rhetoric while the Media Diversity Institute (MDI) looks closer at the coverage of the Italian mainstream media outlets. Did they fail to question the Italy’s turn to right or there are signs of changing the course of reporting since Salvini became a minister a month ago?

The British Parliament Home affairs select committee called for a hardship fund to be set up by the government in order to help victims of the Windrush scandal who have fallen into financial difficulties.

On May 29th the case of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko made the headlines. At first, most of the media reported that he was shot and killed in Kiev. Less than 24 hours later, the same prominent media reported that they were wrong - Babchenko appeared alive and well on a press conference talking about the ‘murder’ that was staged in order to uncover Russia’s plan to assassinate him. The German broadcaster DW interviewed some of the Babchenko’s colleagues in Moscow and Kyiv who criticized him for faking his death saying that the stunt has undermined trust in independent journalism. Many agree that Babchenko’s ‘fake murder’ and the way media reported on it can be added to the list of excuses to mistrust media.

Some of the most prominent media outlets including BBC, the Guardian, the Independent, CNN, Reuters and many more covered the news pre and post the revelation of the murder setup. According to CNN, “no fake news ever shocked reporters working in Russia and Ukraine more than this story.”

In Georgia, the media is very often used as a propaganda tool. Due to tense relations between Russia and the USA, and the rest of the Western world, media is often used as a tool to serve the motives of either of the parties. Georgian media has a pro-Kremlin agenda due to political inclinations and therefore is used to disseminate misinformation regarding the Western world through its messages, sometimes subtly and sometimes in a more direct manner.

This was the conclusion drawn in a recent study conducted by the Media Development Foundation (MDF), in which they analysed the anti-Western messages and fake news spread in the Georgian media. The research aims to look at different media outlets, including mainstream and print media to monitor the pattern of dissemination of fake news and anti-Western perspective throughout different Georgian media platforms.

The study, titled "Anti-Western Propaganda", looks at various statements made in Georgian broadcast and print media that establish the West, particularly the USA, as an enemy state. For example, Valeri Kvaratskhelia, a presenter for TV Obieqtivi said during one of the shows: “The USA has recently created a terrorist state, the so-called Islamic State, and used it for strengthening its hegemony in the Middle East. It was primarily Russia that went against it because Russia believed that the existence of a terrorist state was unacceptable.”

American TV network ABC cancelled the Roseanne Barr’s show after the American comedian made racist comments on Twitter about the former advisor to President Obama, Valarie Jarrett, who is black and is born in Iran to American parents. Barr, who is a long-time Trump supporter, was a star of the long running sitcom “Roseanne” which apparently was the most popular US show of 2018. Many media outlets reporting a story on ABC cancelling Barr’s show, repeated and quoted exactly the same racist tweet. The Media Diversity Institute (MDI) asked experts if those media should have avoided repeating Roseanne Barr’s racism.

ABC explained their decision to the show citing that Barr’s statements are not reflective of the channel’s policies and belief and inconsistent with their values."